There's an App for that
Hello pocket friends,
As a writer, I’m used to the constant invention of new words.
Who could have predicted that some of the most offensive words used against oppressed or marginalised groups would be adopted and reclaimed by those same groups as a way to make those words lose their power?
Who would have thought that new companies would have to spell their brand a different way to usual because someone already owned the domain name for that word? (Well done to B&Q, the diy shop that must have got into this internet fad very early on, and nabbed the web address of DIY.com)
In other words, I can no longer read the font on my shampoo bottle, and rely on the manufacturer to not “refresh the branding” of the label too much, so I know it’s the same one that I used before.
The ever spiraling circle of technology where every new update or gadget lasts half as long as the one before with a built-in obsolescence of far too soon, and way before I’ve had change to save up enough to buy its replacement.
The above gadgets were all my pride and joy once… One day I’ll tell you the tale about my collection of ipods or buying the same boots a few years apart, and being saddened that they were not the same quality.
But hindsight has the clarity of vision that none of us had at the time, and although some politicians might want to rewrite it to put them in a better light and some other people might want to claim that they are on the right side of history, the thing about it is that it cannot be changed. The past is a foreign country and all that. We all did things differently back them. One reason I write is because women’s history is so sparse (or written by men about women) so everything I publish now is a further historical record from a specific time.
Hit List
BOOK
‘The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows’ by John Koenug.
You’ve probably heard someone say that there’s a German word for every strange or particular scenario, right? Well, this book gathers up the randomness of situations in life with their respective feelings, and provides just those words. They may be made-up or real, I don’t know, but this whole book is filled with that curious melancholy that you sometimes get at the end of the summer holidays or when you see someone you used to know really well but have no forgotten their name. You may have spent days or years together but they never crossed your mind until just now.
My favourite word in this book is SONDER, which is the realisation that every living being has a rich inner world and life of their own, and I might only have a walk-on part in their life.
MUSIC
Apparently, Wet Leg are the new Nirvana. They do have quite a few earworms and nods to 90s culture in their songs (I’m a fan of anyone who’s a fan of Kim Deal. I even referenced her myself in my short story, ‘Say When’). I didn’t catch onto Wet Leg until after they had won all of the awards, but they do have the best ‘What did you do in lockdown?’ story. They’d been in other bands for years but then formed a band in lockdown together, rehearsed, got signed, released an album (that debuted at Number 1) and then started gigging, so not too shabby.
I did a fair bit in lockdown. I wrote loads of short stories, many of which were published. Working from home meant that I could have time to attend loads of zoom creative writing classes, and the first time I genuinely went anywhere socially for over a year was for a poetry project . If you’re interested in seeing that video, then here’s a link to my blog.
FILM
Good luck to Kazuro Ishiguru at the Oscars for ‘Living’. He’s one of my favourite writers of all time, and always captures that aching sense of not quite fitting in, and the fleeting nature of life. I wonder who will be there after we’ve gone, to see all of our photos that we saved on our phones but never printed off?
‘Never Let Me Go’ Is a film I return to over and over again.
Until next time,
Nx